Label:
Touch & Go
Release Date:
08/10/2007

Five years since Enon raised the bar dramatically with album number two High Society, and four since their most recent, Hocus Pocus, dropped the ball a bit, the trio return with their most direct effort to date, Grass Geysers… Carbon Clouds.

From snap-happy opener on down it’s clear their wayward pre-school pop has never sounded so strident. If at times in the past Enon have sounded like the kid at school who put his hand up for every question only to give the most fantastically erroneous answers, this is the record that sees them finally lose their milk teeth and sprout fangs. …Carbon Clouds sets out its stall as a fast and loose rocker, from aforementioned first track 'Mirror On You', which dive-bombs onto your speakers in high style, to standout 'Colette' with its delirious bass hook and scuzzy guitars getting all up in your face like toxic mist.

Unfortunately after this fantastic brace Enon have trouble sustaining their attack, and although ideas are never exactly in short supply, after four years you might feel entitled to expect a little more. Shorn of an experimental guise songs have to stand and fall on their own merits, and arguably numbers like 'Law Of Johnny Doolittle' and 'Paperweights' are filler on a record which, at 35 minutes long, has no room for any.

With the band continuing to rattle through ideas at a rate of knots there are bound to be high spots, and top billing probably goes to the breathless power-punk of 'Those Who Don’t Believe' and 'Pigeneration', which lends gravitas to their future-kitsch thanks to an affecting vocal from Toko Yasuda. The case for ...Carbon Clouds as a fine collection of inventive indie songs enthusiastically rendered is undeniable, but if somehow you’re hankering after more than that, well... you get the picture.